1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems for monitoring production in flowlines and, more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to a system for monitoring production in a flowline utilizing parameters established from a predetermined production flow characteristic profile.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Off-shore oil fields generally have included a number of individual wells which were distributed over a considerable area of the sea floor into which the wells were drilled. In some such fields, it has been the practice to connect each well to a central collecting station by a flowline and the production from the various wells was collected at the central collecting station where the oil and gas was separated from the total fluids produced by the wells and, subsequently, such oil and gas were shipped or otherwise transported to shore-based facilities for further processing. In some instances, a tiered collection network was utilized where a number of sub-collecting stations were dispersed in the field with each sub-collecting station generally being located to collect production from a number of selected wells and the production collected at the various sub-collecting stations, then, was passed through a flowline to the central collecting station.
The production from individual wells fluctuated or varied with time and it has been difficult in the past to distinguish such fluctuations from problem conditions where something was interfering with production from the well, such as a malfunction in the equipment used to raise well fluids to the surface or a blocked or restricted flowline, for example. Detection of problem conditions in production from wells tended to increase in tiered collection networks, because the production from several wells, including the well associated with the problem production condition, was collected at the sub-collecting station and the total collected production was passed to the central collecting station. Thus, a problem production condition associated with a particular well might go undetected for a considerable length of time, since production would continue to flow from the sub-collecting station as a result of the production received from the other wells associated with the particular sub-collecting station.
In the past, personnel managing the field have engaged in extensive travel about the field to check conditions at the sub-collecting stations and at the well heads to determine if problem conditions in production existed. In many instances, it was necessary to open the various flowlines and conduct tests to determine if problem conditions in production existed in connection with the various individual wells.